


Roses and Lilies and Lavender

by HeartofMossyStone



Series: A Little More Time, Duology [2]
Category: Purple Hyacinth - Ephemerys & Sophism (Webcomic)
Genre: Are they in love? Perhaps, F/M, More flower language, Thank you Richard Folkard, but also love them, death?, if you want to tell someone how much you hate them, or not?, remember kids, use white poppies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:09:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29577297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartofMossyStone/pseuds/HeartofMossyStone
Summary: Bring me daisies and dahlias and daffodilsBring me a little more timeAnd if you should see it, in all of your travelsBring back this wild heart of mineIt is Lauren's nature to love Kieran White.
Relationships: Lauren Sinclair & Kieran White, Lauren Sinclair/Kieran White
Series: A Little More Time, Duology [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2172885
Comments: 1
Kudos: 54





	Roses and Lilies and Lavender

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to everyone who yelled at me for writing something sad.

Write me a book that forgets what it knows,

But knows that it knows the truth;

Bring me a fear and bring me a hope,

And try to make sure they’re the same.

Bring me roses and lilies and lavender,

Bring me dogwood and aspen and pine.

Bring me daisies and dahlias and daffodils,

Bring me a little more time.

And if you should see it, on all of your travels,

Bring back this wild heart of mine.

From  _ Roses and Lilies and Lavender (Original) _

  
  


·················•·················•

“I doubt you want me here, so I’ll say my piece quickly, then I’ll leave.” Lauren doesn’t bother waiting for a response. “I have a lot to say though, so you’ll have to tolerate me for a time.” 

Snow drifts around her feet and piles on top of her hat. Surely it isn’t weighing her down by that much, but she feels as though she is being dragged into freezing darkness. 

“I found your letter. Thank you…” She fiddles with the fingertips of her gloves. “Thank you for leaving it for me. You knew how to make sure I would find it, of course. Your explanation helped. And I’ve never seen such a beautifully written apology, you stupid man. You should have been an artist or a poet. You should have been better. You should have been free.” 

Lauren almost reaches out, but stops herself just in time. If she… no, the contact would break her. The contact would make everything real. But it is real, she reminds herself. It is true. And the truth has always had it out for her—always apparent and ever evasive. She has always loved his truth, though. He was her favorite truth and her deepest lie. 

“ _ You stupid man! _ ” She kicks the snow around her, trying to throw her anger somewhere,  _ anywhere _ —because he isn’t there to receive it. Because he is just as cold as she is, as he lies under the dirt. Silent. Empty. 

She scream s as she  falls to her knees, and slams her fist into the plain granite headstone. “Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. You could have asked me for help. I helped you the first time, Kieran, why would I not help you a second?  _ Why _ would you destroy yourself for me?  _ How much did it hurt, to twist your own mind around? _ ” 

Lauren shifts, lying back in the snow atop his grave, her hand stretching above her head, touching the icy stone. “How much did they torture you? Why wouldn’t you just kill for them, Kieran? You would still be alive if you had. I guess that’s the question though: is it better to live immorally, but live, or to die with pure heart and clear conscience?” 

The snow crept up through the wool of her skirt and petticoats, through the back of her blazer and through her gloves, not stopping at her skin, but invading her blood and seeping into her bones. “I respect the choice you made, even if  I hate you for making it.” 

Sniffing, she lifts a ragged and mismatched bouquet, waving it in the air a few times before she lets her hand fall back into the snow.

“I know you always loved flowers, Kieran. Even at your darkest, you loved them and spoke through them.” Her breath shakes, and she croaks more than laughs. “But I didn’t get what you asked me to in your letter. You fool—you really thought I would sit here and mark you as a traitor even in death? For  _ heaven’s _ sake, Kieran, I loved you. I love you. I will love you. Love doesn’t break that easily and  _ I _ don’t break that easily.

“You wanted absinth—bitterness in love, really?—and asphodel. That one’s a whole mouthful, isn’t it? ‘My regrets follow you to the grave.’ You probably think I regret so much time spent with you. Nettle? Straw? I’m not condemning you, Kieran. Did you expect me to choose your flowers without doing my research? You never did anything without a reason, I know that… The tuberose though, I kept.” She scoffs. “Dangerous pleasure. Sounds right. But I brought cypress—that’s mourning, and laurel for victory...and for me. I hope that’s okay. I wanted to be with you somehow, after promising you that I would never leave you alone. 

“I left the asphodel in, too. Regrets… I have a lot of those where you’re concerned, Kieran. And if you don’t know what they are, I’m not telling you, so you’ll have to wait until I join you to find out. How do you like that? I can leave you in the dark as well.” 

She strokes the stone, trying to pretend that the water dripping down her face is melting snow. She ignores the fact that melted snow would be cold. She ignores the heat of the drops. She ignores the salt that is sliding past her lips. She ignores the ache behind her eyes. 

“Kieran, I put heliotrope in the bouquet. The florist must have thought I was truly insane. Heliotrope—do I really have to tell you what that means? It’s… it’s love eternal, Kieran. I don’t think love is severed when we die. I think it’s better, and fuller, and maybe I think that because I’m a coward. Maybe I have to believe that you’re happy over there—that everyone is happier now, because the alternative is that we live a tragic life, we die a painful death, and then we rot. 

“I’m not that brave, Kieran. So, I hope you know I still love you…”

Her hand tightens around the stems of the bouquet. Her skin dips another shade paler, and she looks more like death with every second. 

“There are daffodils there too. Those are—”

“Daffodils for forgiveness.”

Lauren freezes. She was already frozen, though, so maybe she lights on fire. She can’t tell through the way her blood is rushing in her ears. 

“You ignored so much of what I wanted, so I’m glad to hear you brought me those.”

Oh, she knows that voice. That lilt, when he says the word “you,” is more familiar than the pattern of her own breathing, which is now running ragged and sharp. His voice falls off into silence, and she knows it was her imagination. She knows he is dead, but she sits up to check anyway, to make sure he is not standing before her, because she doesn’t know what she will do if he is, and she doesn’t want to find out.

Kieran was always bad at doing what she  _ wanted _ him to do, of course, so it is only natural for him to be watching her, perfectly alive, perfectly dressed, perfectly postured, perfectly perfect in the way that only he could be. His crystal blue eyes flash with mirth and Lauren is angry at herself for loving it. 

“I hope that your forgiveness is as all-encompassing as your love, and that it isn’t conditional upon my being dead. You can see how that might get messy.” 

In a daze, Lauren pushes herself up from the ground. The bouquet falls from her hand as she stands, and she wonders if this intense emptiness is what Kieran used to feel as he dropped his own flowers. All her life, she has believed that uncertainty is the worst feeling in the world, but the whiplash from one certainty being swept away by another is a close contender. 

“Lauren…”

“Say it.”

“What?”

“Say it. I need to know.”

“I love you.”

Lauren watches him, watches his eyes, watches the swell of his lips as he speaks. “Again.”

“I love you.”

Her eyes well up with tears, she can feel it. She curses herself, but there wasn’t anything for it. Three years of silence and a letter that would only come to her if he died have paved the path to this moment. 

“Lie to me, Kieran.”

He tilts his head to one side, and she hates the way she loves the lines of his jaw. “ You are not the most astounding woman I have ever known. If I were to commit myself to any one person, for the rest of eternity, I would choose someone else. I thought of you every day, and the memory of your love kept me strong.”

“That wasn’t a—”

“I couldn’t live, if the Phantom Scythe was ever to be destroyed, but I couldn’t die before apologizing to you. I didn’t… for the first time, I had something to live for, and I didn’t want to die, Lauren. I wanted to find you. I wanted—”

“How did you do it?”

Kieran sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I waited until  they got bored of torturing me , then accepted a mission. I staged a capture, I killed, and I helped some…  friends … root out the remaining members. At least, the ones who knew my face and anything else about me are gone.”

Lauren still hasn’t moved—isn’t sure if she can—so they simply stare at each other. Lauren tries desperately to shove down the emotions inside of her, but  _ curse him  _ because she does still love him and she does still want him and she forgave him so, so long ago. “Give me your hand.” 

It’s a demand, but he allows her to take his hand in her cold, wet gloves and unbutton the cuff of his sleeve. The chill that should surround the skin she’s baring is fended off by the heat of her proximity. She rolls the sleeve up, and the snow falls freely on twisting scars. 

Lauren bites the finger of one glove and pulls it off, the other following after. She lets them fall into the dirt, her eyes fixed on the raised skin. Ever so gently, she runs her fingers across the skin, down to his hand, and rests her fingertips against his own. It is not enough for Kieran, and he pulls her hand to his lips ever so slowly, watching her eyes and her mouth for any sign of protest. 

She gives none--she has none to give--and is glad for it. She didn’t know she could miss something the way she has missed the rough skin of his hands, and the warmth of his kiss. The truth of the situation finally washes over her and she throws herself into his arms. 

“I’ve come here three times a week since your funeral,” she whispers against his neck, and she enjoys the way he shivers. 

“And somehow I missed you every time.”

“Kieran White…” She relaxes into him and it  _ hurts _ to have him back. It hurts with the same pain that warm water burns with when you come in from the snow. It’s the best pain Lauren has ever felt. 

“Lauren Sinclair.” He replies. Then, out of habit, he adds, “I love you.” 

“I love you too,” she promises, “And if you were me, you would know that isn’t a lie.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to make him a ghost. I wanted her insane and him dead, but that's "sad" and "not the point of an apology fic" and "what is wrong with you just let them be happy," so here's this ball of cheese. 
> 
> I'm near incapable of writing something happy without shadowing it with sorrow. It's more fun. 
> 
> But they deserve a happy ending.


End file.
